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Turning the Page: Does the parliamentary budget office need an overhaul?

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page believes it’s within the PBO’s mandate to review the impacts of cuts contained in the federal budget, while the Conservative government argues the PBO’s job is to review federal expenditures — not dollars it has decided not to spend.Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — They spar regularly on many issues — including the role of the office and value of its work — but the Conservative government and Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page seem to agree on one thing: change is needed in the PBO.

The Stephen Harper government says Page has wandered off his mandate, arguing his role and duties should be better defined and that the budget officer was meant to be a “sounding board” – not necessarily a watchdog – for government spending.

Page argues his office needs more independence, and stable funding.

Yet as the 55-year-old economist prepares to step down March 25 when his term ends, even some Conservative backbenchers say the PBO is an effective check on the executive powers of the federal cabinet.

Even so, Canada already has an independent, federal auditor general. Is the PBO (and its $2.8 million annual budget) actually necessary, and if so, does it need an overhaul? The debate flared up in the House of Commons again this week.

Page has issued a series of reports over the past few years that have irked the Harper government, which questions the accuracy and credibility of the work. Those reports have included costs estimates on the Afghanistan military mission, F-35 fighter jets and crime legislation, along with analysis on the fiscal impacts of changes to Old Age Security and health transfers to the provinces. None of these reports has been flattering for the government.

On the other hand, the PBO’s critics believe Page has sometimes been partisan, and too public, and that he has overreached his mandate.

Administratively, the PBO reports to the Library of Parliament, which is largely controlled by the Speakers of the House of Commons and Senate. Frustrated by this, Page says the legislative mandate of the PBO is in fact to report directly to Parliament, but that’s difficult due to bureaucratic and funding obstacles that go along with reporting through the library.

The position must be an independent officer of Parliament, like the auditor general or the ethics commissioner, he says. That would give the office a strong mandate and more predictable funding, as well as the necessary independence, accountability, and improved access to budgetary information, he argues.

“The office, as it has carried out its mandate over the past five years, will not exist five to 10 years from now unless the legislation is renewed to address (these) issues,” Page told Postmedia News.

“The choice is: do we want to have a true independent and competent legislative budget office or not? Parliamentarians and Canadians must decide.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, under fire this week in the Commons over the government’s repeated criticism of the budget office, noted the Conservatives created the PBO to ensure it provides independent, non-partisan analysis onfiscal matters.
“We are committed to that and want to make sure in future that the office does credible and non-partisan work,” Harper said.

The PBO has asked the Federal Court to clarify its mandate and specifically whether it has the jurisdiction to demand details of $5.2 billion in federal budget reductions over the next few years. Several departments have withheld the information Page says he needs for this exercise.

Lawyers for the speakers of the House of Commons and Senate, along with the Attorney General of Canada, are expected to argue in court in March that it’s up to Parliament — not the Federal Court — to decide the mandate of the parliamentary budget officer.

There is support among some Conservative backbenchers for the PBO.

“If a parliamentary budget officer is to provide meaningful advice to Parliament,from time to time the government is going to disagree with that advice, and that is just part of the scrutinizing process,” said Edmonton Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber, who sits on a joint House/Senate committee on the Library of Parliament.

Rathgeber said it’s his understanding the PBO’s request to be an officer of Parliament — separated from the parliamentary library — will be revisited with the appointment of the next budget officer.

Making the PBO an officer of Parliament would provide greater independence, he agreed, and make it more difficult for any cabinet to remove the budget officer from the position.

“The PBO should not be accountable, in my view, to the government. The PBO should be accountable to Parliament and to provide independent assessment and advice to Parliament, to hold the government to account, not the other way around,” he added.

Rathgeber says, however, there is a perception the PBO has become partisan and that only opposition members request information from the office. He wants it to be less so, and “less public in many ways,” like other officers of Parliament such as the privacy and language commissioners – who don’t snare nearly as many headlines.

Page has not always helped himself. He recently offered CBC Radio’s As It Happens a tongue-in-cheek list of key skills his successor will need, including knowledge of ”early childhood development” and “smoke and mirrors.” He joked the next PBO needs “decades of experience toiling away under senior public service and cabinet ministers in finance or treasury departments whose primary interest is to advance their personal careers at the expense of the democratic and financial health of the country.”

Page and his office have been under the microscope since he took the helm nearly five years ago, with repeated attempts to rein him in.

Not long after Page was appointed, then-Commons Speaker Peter Milliken and Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella said that he had overstepped his mandate and should not be operating so independently and openly.

Today, Milliken says the role of the office has evolved. He believes the budget officer should, indeed, be a separate officer of Parliament, reporting directly to parliamentarians.

The former speaker and Liberal MP, now a fellow in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, said he doesn’t believe the PBO was ever meant to be only a sounding board for government, as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has suggested.

Instead, it has and should continue to offer independent analysis on federal government expenditures, projections and legislation, Milliken said.

“The office has value,” Rathgeber says. “There are some problems with some of the current perceptions, but I think it does good work.”

Don Drummond, a former senior official at Finance Canada and one of the members of the 2008 PBO hiring committee that selected Page, said the office is important for Canadians and parliamentarians because it looks forward and provides potential fiscal impacts of government decisions and economic trends.

The auditor general — the other government spending watchdog — is always looking back at how money was spent, he said.

Moreover, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for parliamentarians to obtain spending information from government departments, he said, meaning the PBO is necessary now more than ever before.

“I don’t see how that need (for the PBO) has diminished. It has probably increased,” he said.

jfekete@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/jasonfekete

What is the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s mandate?

The Harper government’s 2006 Federal Accountability Act created the PBO, which is an officer of the Library of Parliament. The federal cabinet appoints the parliamentary budget officer from a list of three names submitted by a committee formed and chaired by the Parliamentary Librarian.

According to the federal legislation, the PBO is to “provide independent analysis to the Senate and to the House of Commons about the state of the nation’s finances, the estimates of the government and trends in the national economy.”

As well, the PBO is required to undertake research on the nation’s finances and economy when it’s requested by either of the Senate or House of Commons finance committees, the public accounts committee, or other committees examining government spending estimates.

Furthermore, the PBO’s mandate requires the budget officer, when requested by an MP or senator, to “estimate the financial cost of any proposal that relates to a matter over which Parliament has jurisdiction.”

Senior Parliament Hill reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, politics junkie, wannabe pro golfer and someone who has wordsmithed at newspapers in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I've covered politics at... read more every level, including city hall in Ottawa and Calgary, the Alberta legislature in Edmonton and now back in Ottawa covering the Hill.View author's profile